Deep Creek Again

Thursday - Friday, July 15-16.  We left Anchor Point and headed 20 miles back up to the Deep Creek State Campground again, where we had such a primo campsite, right on the beach.  Lo and behold, we were able to park in the exact spot again, this time with Dave and Mazie right behind us, also with beachfront camping.  The water was really rough today, but it made for some pretty waves.

Mazie and I made cinammon rolls to take to Tim, as a thank-you for our excellent fishing trip on Saturday, then we drove into Kenai to meet him to get our prescriptions we had mailed to his house.  We ate dinner in Kenai at Louie's again, then headed back to camp with a couple side trips on the way. 
We got to watch them dipnetting for red salmon (Coho) on the Kenai River bridge on the Kenai Spur highway, so we observed that for a while.  They use some huge nets, with long handles.  When the boats go by, some of the people standing chest deep in the river just about lost their balance.  But we did see them net a few fish, from the bank and from a boat.

We spotted one big old moose right beside the road.  When we got back to camp, the waves were really crashing into the beach.  There were a few boats out late, some looked like commercial vessels.  I tried to stay up to take a picture of the sunset over the ocean, but I couldn't stay up that late.  These two photos were taken at 10:20 p.m.,  sunset must have been sometime around 11:30 p.m.

These pictures were taken from the doorsteps of our RV, so you can see that we did have an awesome view.

Friday morning, we still had pretty windy weather, although the sea was a bit calmer.  I picked up some flat rocks to take home for Kaylee to paint.  Joe keeps complaining about the weight of all the rocks I keep collecting, from Brenda, and now for Kaylee.

We found a road for Eric to check out if he ever makes it to Alaska.  This is probably the road he would live on.

Not sure where the road goes but here is what it looks like.

We had to spend some of our maintenance budget money today to replace the two batteries in the RV, so we back to Kenai to the Walmart.  We had hoped there might be some pro rata on our old batteries, but there wasn't so we had to bite the bullet and spend the $200.  But the batteries kept going down when we dry-camped so we needed to get that taken care of.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant named Acapulco, which was pretty good.  Then we drove back through Soldotna and another 10 miles to camp at Sterlling, which is where the Moose and the Kenai Rivers come together.  Joe spotted a moose on the way to Kenai but we haven't seen any around Moose River yet, although we are camped at Moose River RV Park, that should certainly count for something!

Homer

Wednesday, July 14. Today we "did" Homer. There are several good viewpoints driving down into Homer, where you can see the Homer Spit.

Our first stop was at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center. We missed exploring the tidepools with a naturalist, but we did do the beach walk and spotted 2 sandhill cranes and a chick. (We didn't know what they were, so we asked back at the center). They were too far away to get a picture, but they were in the marshy area of the second picture.

Inside the center was a good map of this area and the bay where we went out to fish. In these photos, I'm pointing to the farthest place we fished, and Mazie is pointing to the Homer Spit area. We were told it was about 33 miles out to "Flat Island," where Tim took us to start fishing.

Here's the harbor in Homer. It's a pretty busy place.

We had lunch on the Spit (halibut again) and walked in and out of some of the gift shops. David found an outfit he thinks he wants for pajamas, since he's always freezing.

Our next destination was the Bear Creek Winery, where they offered lots of wine tasting. They had lots of neat bear carvings, including this cool bench. Mazie and Dave enjoyed this more than Joe and I, since we are not too heavily into wine.

I thought this bear with the wine bottle on his back was particularly appealing.

There was a lodge here as well, and the grounds were beautifully landscaped.

Joe and I walked around while David purchased his wine. We even found a maypole with swings. Of course, when we got off we were dizzy, and we didn't know if the dizziness was from the wine or the swings!

On our way back into Homer, we came upon a moose right beside the road. John, this is the one we saw when I was talking to you on the phone.

Deep Creek

Monday-Tuesday, July 12-13. We decided it was time to move out of Soldotna, since we weren't having much luck with fishing in the Kenai River. So we had a grueling 40-mile drive down the Sterling Highway to Deep Creek, just past Ninilchik. We camped in a perfect spot in a state campground, right on the beach.

Joe was in his element. He could have stayed here a week. Lots to see, just sitting watching the gulls and eagles, the boats being launched by tractor, and the people clamming.

Some natives built a fire next to our camp site and started cleaning their catch of razor clams. They let us watch the mom, an elderly Eskimo woman originally from Nome, cleaning the approximately 60 clams they had dug that morning.

The daughter brought us over a piece of smoked red salmon, which they eat. I believe this is what is fed to the sled dogs in the winter. It was pretty nasty tasting.

Then she brought over some smoked walrus, which they can harvest because they are natives. It was pretty gristly, so we passed on tasting that, although later David was sorry he didn't try it.

The tide swing in Alaska is pretty awesome, and it was really visible in this area. We watched this big rock disappear from sight in about 12 minutes as the high tide came in.

We walked down the beach to watch the tractors retrieve the boats as they came in from a day of fishing. These were mostly charter boats, but there were probably some private ones in there as well. We sat there for almost 2 hours watching. It was pretty chilly, probably in the 50s. John, you might recognize Mazie's sock cap -- I think your Grandma Williams bought it for you at the Grand Canyon when you were 9 years old.

David, who is always cold, did not have a hat on, so Joe helped him get his hood snapped on his jacket and tightened up.

The tractors go up and pick up the boat trailer and back it into the water. This was close to high tide and there were pretty good swells. The boats really come in hard onto the trailer. They would hook up the wench strap and pull the boat out of the water and then drop it so the boat owner could get his truck and come pick up the boat on the trailer.

They had an emergency on one of the boats and the paramedics were waiting for it when the tractor brought it in. Apparently, some man had a heart attack while fishing. I told Tim (our host/guide on Saturday) that he probably was using a 3-lb. weight like he had on my line.

Finally, we decided to leave all this action and go for a drive. Unfortunately, I left my folding chair out and it disappeared while we went on this drive. We went across the Ninilchik River and back through another campground and found a small harbor and a dock where they unload the fish from the commercial boats and truck it to the cannery. We were lucky that one boat was in unloading, so we got to watch that operation.

Then we drove back to an old Russian Orthodox church. It had a cemetery, and a great view of old Ninilchik Village, which was settled in the 19th century.

We came back to the campground and just enjoyed our great campsite for a while. Dave and Mazie were a couple rows behind us, with a view of a marshy area. But you don't find many campsites like this.

We watched eagles and gulls and then a sea lion went by. We were able to watch it for quite a while as it went right past our campsite, maybe 50 yards from the beach.

Joe kept trying to get a picture of a seagull in flight, and he was finally successful.

This morning, we watched them launch the boats, at low tide. They have to back those boat trailers a long ways out before getting them off. Mazie wondered if they ever sink the tractors.

Joe drove the Explorer along the beach - a high point for him. Then we got out in the rain and walked down to watch the clammers. We came upon this starfish that got left behind when the tide went out.

We talked to some of the clam diggers but no one was having much luck. One man said the clams don't like the cold weather, and it was 52 and rainy. We saw a few in buckets, and Mazie got to watch one being dug out, but no one else had any success while we were watching.

The other side of the road we were driving on has a high cliff, and it was just dotted with eagles. They would fly down and find something to eat every once in a while. The last picture is one Joe zoomed in to the second level but it is a little blurry.

Check-out time was noon at the campground, so we went back to the RV and got ready to hit the road for another grueling drive. This time we drove about 20 miles, and are camped at Anchor Point. It started raining about 8:00 last night, rained all night, and hasn't stopped yet. We intend to drive down to Homer and mess around down there for a little while, if it would just quit raining!

We stopped for gas, but the pump went off on me after just a few gallons. Joe and Dave couldn't get theirs even to come on. After a few minutes wait, we found out the electricity had gone off. So I drove off to locate our campground, then returned and led our caravan in. It was still raining, so Joe waited for a while to hook up the RV, but once we found out the electricity had come back on, he did brave the elements and plug us in.

We had a pretty good view from our campsite again, not quite like the day before, but we had a view of the Cook Inlet maybe a half-mile off. While we were playing cards this evening, watching lots of eagles in the area, a young bull moose in the grassy area right in front of us. We got to watch him for a while, until our neighbors spooked him, but we didn't get a pictue. But this is the grassy area where he was. There's an eagle on the pole in this picture.

Sunday in Soldotna

Sunday, July 11 - After our marathon day yesterday, we took it  easy today for the most part.  I did the laundry first thing, to wash our fishy-smelling jackets and clothes.  Mazie and I went to the grocery store.  We repacked the halibut for our freezers (we only kept about half of it because we didn't have any more room in our small refrigerator-freezers -- we left the rest with Tim.)  David fixed the fish for our wonderful dinner.  Then we drove up the road a little ways to fish for red salmon in the Kenai River.  But we kept getting snagged and Joe had to break our lines for us, since we are using really heavy line, and he broke the tip of Mazie's pole trying to break her line, so we came back to camp to fish right here at the campground, hoping we wouldn't snag as much.  But it was the same situation, we snagged again right away, so we lost our three weights we had purchased and then just quit.  At least we can say we fished the Kenai, we just don't have to say for how long.

We were all happy to have an early night, since we are moving down the road toward Homer tomorrow.